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Alberti, G orcid.org/0000-0001-5673-6568, Bessa, I orcid.org/0000-0003-2984-746X, Hardy, KR orcid.org/0000-0003-0429-2701 et al. (2 more authors) (2018) In, Against and Beyond Precarity: Work in Insecure Times. Work, Employment and Society, 32 (3). pp. 447-457. ISSN 0950-0170
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In, against and beyond precarity: the struggles of insecure workers
Class precarity and conceptual overstretch
This Special Issue ‘In, Against and Beyond Precarity: The Struggles of Insecure Workers’
received over 100 submissions; one of the highest numbers in the history of BSA special
issues.1 This enthusiastic response reflects the current level of academic interest in the
topic and also its political relevance. As labour s situation relative to capital has
worsened, the prevalence of the term precarity has proliferated, both to describe the
expansion of more contingent structures of employment, but also to denote an increase
in perceptions of insecurity among workers. Yet conceptual problems abound in writing
on precarity (Della Porta et al., 2015) while politically these terms are subject to ongoing
contestation, in scholarships and beyond.
Bourdieu (1963) is credited with the term précarité, using it in his research in Algeria to
differentiate between workers with permanent jobs and those with casual ones. During
the 1970s, it gained greater prominence through its adoption by leftist movements in
continental Europe, as a means of rallying (often) young workers excluded from stable
jobs. The notion of precarity therefore finds its roots in worker mobilisation from the left,
with these connotations following through to the contemporary moment. By 2001 the
Collective Chain Workers in Italy were using the term to describe the new proletariat in
the urban service sector and around the same period intermittent French cultural
workers were using the same language to catalyse opposition to the retrenchment of
social protections (ChainCrew 2001; Foti 2017).
1
Such usage demands a consideration of the relationship between the terminology of
precarity and the concept of class. Is there a distinct precariat class (Standing, 2009)?
The answer to this is surely no. It is true that the early protest movements played on the
notion that contingent workers employment status gave them a distinct shared identity
and set of demands relative to the traditional working class (e.g. Bodnar, 2006).
However, whatever the value of this framing as a means of mobilisation, attempts to use
it in defining new identities for general academic usage have led to significant conceptual
stretching, often diminishing the concepts explanatory power. This is perhaps inevitably
so, since classificatory efforts must be based on more than employment status as a
singular indicator of class location. Standing s account identifies a range of
different elements that constitute the precariat , including weak access to skills and voice
in the workplace, and increasing vulnerability to disciplinary measures imposed by
management or government - as well as contentiously a lack of investment in labourist
politics, that is those based around access to employment and/or work-based struggles.
The term precariat has been extensively critiqued for a range of reasons (e.g. Breman,
2013; Munck, 2013). The ability of Standings conception to incorporate an extremely
wide range of people into the precariat is arguably its biggest problem in terms of its
conceptual value.
There is clearly an open question concerning how broad notions of precarity can become
before they lose their value For some the term s diffuseness must be countered by
restricting it to narrow and measurable criteria, for instance, particular forms of
employment relationships (such as fixed-term contracts, on-demand work, or bogus
self-employment) (see Choonara, 2016). Such an approach has the value of enhanced
measurability, but has evidently proven too limiting for many sociologists, for whom
note that despite the volume of interest, very few papers submitted to this special issue
were quantitative. This reflects not just the strength of qualitative work in this field, but
also the evident difficulties of measuring precarity and concomitantly developing
quantitative analyses of it.
In contrast to looking only at certain forms of contingent employment, some scholars
have emphasised a subjective feeling of precarity constituted by a sense of lost
recognition and social integration (Dörre, 2007; Dörre et al., 2004). Lorey (2012),
following Butler (2009) argues that physical beings suffer from a general precariousness
as a condition of being vulnerable and ultimate exposure to death. However, humans try
to immunise against precariousness, through family, social bonds, or the welfare state.
In this reading, precarity is thus the consequence of an unequal distribution of protection
within society, which leaves some groups more exposed to precariousness than others.
Using the more processual rendering of the concept, Eversberg (2014) has argued that
precarisation is more than the return of insecurity into post-Fordist workers lives, but
something new: the loss of grip over a future that once seemed under control, as more
and more areas of life are subordinated to the needs of the economy (Neilson and
Rossiter, 2005; Marchart, 2013). Precarisation is thus best used to describe increasing
insecurity in both subjective and objective respects, which can be identified across
modern capitalist economies including in ostensibly privileged strata (Kalleberg, 2009).
However, this has the risk of excessive breadth, and so different and specific forms of
precarisation must be delineated.
Below, we suggest some novel ways of defining and understanding different forms of
precarisation. For now, we note the problematic relationship between the concept of
precarity and the concept of class. In Anglophone sociology, debates around precarity
in debates around class. The questions increasingly asked, are: how are different social
classes defined, who is in them, what are the barriers between them? This has been
exemplified by recent works such as that of Savage (2015), the success of which enabled
a particular version of class analysis to make a decisive move from the margins to the
centre Bradley 430). For Savage (2015) inspired by Bourdieu the precariat
appears as the bottom of the new British class structure being the most deprived of
access to social economic or cultural capitals Precarity thus appears as a means of
sorting people into categories which become self-perpetuating, leading to entrenched
inequality which undermines the liberal pursuit of social mobility
Class, however, is about more than classification. The relationship between labour and
capital is a dynamic one: the imperatives of capital accumulation lead to new and
constantly evolving demands on workers and on governments. In the current moment of
contemporary capitalism, social groups that had been comparatively sheltered from
market forces and resulting insecurity (such as professionals or managerial staff) are
becoming increasingly exposed to them. Thus, Bourdieusian sociology risks missing a
theory of class structure in the sense of a structured relationship between direct
producers and surplus appropriators (Riley, 2017:14-15). In this Marxian
understanding, there is no one group for whom precarity is a unique hallmark; precarity
is instead theorised as inherent to all labour-capital relationships, to varying degrees.
The implication of this argument is that, while more nuance and precision in discussing
precarity is undoubtedly needed, its use cannot be confined to one particular segment of
the population. Such an approach may lead to a static analysis which underestimates the
scope of change in the world of work and employment: it is not only the precariat that
as an inherent condition of producers with capitalism on the one hand, while on the other
also demanding more nuance in identifying the different processes through which
precarity may increase across a diverse range of employment contexts. The drivers of
precarity, and their variegated impacts need more careful delineation. Better
conceptualisations and understandings of these processes is vital in enabling rigorous
research into work and employment. It is also politically necessary in that it helps us
identify the threats to, and points of leverage for, a global working class in a context of
profound inequality (Atkinson, 2015). An excessively broad and all-encompassing notion
of precarity removes the potential agency of workers from class struggle by rendering
them as disempowered victims of the vagaries of capital.
In this sense while the origins of precarity were radical and progressive a narrative
which denotes precarity as ubiquitous and all-pervasive risks becoming a political tool
for capital in that it can guarantee the subordination of people who feel that they are
powerless in the face of organised capital. Indeed, Neilson and Rossiter (2008: 53) have
argued that the emergence of precarity as an object of academic analysis corresponds
with its decline as a political concept motivating social movement activity . The nebulous
use of the term surely compounds this. While keeping also in mind the problems with
fixing precarity as an analytical concept and the tensions with its political use, there is
still great value in research that explores the experiences of precarity and the
precarisation of work (Shukaitis, 2013:656).
Below we emphasise drivers and patterns of precarisation as a more useful object of study
than precarity as a general and poorly-defined condition with potentially negative
Drivers and patterns of precarisation, and the role of the State
The contributions in this issue reveal key drivers and patterns of precarisation in a
diverse array of labour market contexts, identifying state and management as key
players. Managers in firms drive explicit forms of precarisation by imposing particular
contractual forms; this includes temporary agency work, zero hour contracts and
subcontracting under multi-employer settings (Forde et al., 2008; Forde, 2016;
Marchington et al., 2005; Grimshaw et al., 2005) as well as gig work and dependent
self-employment. One form of objective precarisation is thus contractual differentiation.
Moore and Newsome (this issue) identify three models of contractual statuses in delivery
work in the UK: drivers directly employed by companies; self-employed owner-drivers
and life style couriers (home-based couriers with very limited ties to the company). By
establishing competition between employees of different contractual types employers
weaken employment relations and exacerbate traits associated with the self-employed
(unpaid labour, long unpaid waiting times, work intensification). This mechanism
suggests first a transfer of risk to the workers and a mitigation of cost for employers,
constituting a form of productive precarisation that is, new forms of objective insecurity
created by state or capital. It also establishes highly precarious work as the 'new norm'
in these sectors of the labour market. Similarly, Ruberys contribution examines the
establishment of forms of employment leading to precarity, as part of a two-fold
'normalisation' process: the erosion of the standard employment relationship (SER), and
the spread of non-standard forms of employment (NSFE) through the withdrawal of
protective instruments.
In addition to these more explicit methods for creating precarity in employment
special issue diverges from traditional perceptions of precarity associated with low paid,
low quality and lower skilled jobs, showing a pervasive perception of precarity among
managerial ranks. Participants sense of insecurity had risen more substantially than
empirical job instability (as measured through job tenure or fixed-term contracts). This
fear had a concrete basis, however, as various managerial strategies - such as mergers or
whipsawing- had made individuals feel increasingly disposable vis-à-vis their
organisational superiors. Irrespective, therefore, of empirical trends, people were
rendered subjectively precarious by the increasing power that senior managers wielded
over them. Note that Hassard also highlight differing generational attitudes, where
younger staff saw this sense of fear as the new normal Thus, this climate of
manufactured uncertainty leads to implicit precarisation, which is not always formally
apparent. It also indicates the disciplinary power of the widespread assumption of
precarity.
Various contributions identify the state, rather than employers, as the key manufacturer
of precarisation, due to its ability to determine individuals access to welfare and social
protection. Even under the apparently inclusive institution of the European Union,
relatively privileged workers such as university-educated intra-EU migrants living in
Brussels experience work and social insecurity through tighter state controls over
welfare and immigration (Simola, in this issue). This citizenship precarisation (see also
Lori, 2017) encapsulates the differentiation occurring at the juridical level relating to
definitions of the citizen-worker (Anderson, 2015), where the temporariness of legal
status becomes a major obstacle for migrants' access to welfare and good quality
employment From Simola s research we learn how young university-educated intra-EU
migrants' access to benefits, health and social assistance have become increasingly
self-sufficiency. The ambiguity within EU legislation relating to definitions of worker,
jobseeker or inactive person reproduces precarity on the ground, and confirms that
differentiating through status (whether employment or residence) is a key form of
precarisation operating at the intersection between work and social reproduction (see
also Choi in this issue). The work-centred nature of welfare conditionality, which is
central to the recommodification of work for everyone see Rubery, this issue), sustains
migrants tendency to accept jobs below their skills levels and therefore leads to forms of
work degradation and de-skilling.
As discussed above, Hassard et al s paper draws direct causal links between perceived
insecurity and specific restructuring strategies implemented by capital. It is important to
note, however, that this kind of insight is lost when precarity is used over-extensively as
the defining characteristic of a class For this reason Smith and Pun s contribution
forcefully attacks analyses of the precariat which assign them the role of victims
through a focus on the emerging Chinese working class. From a Marxist perspective, they
claim that insecurity and legal discrimination based on the household registration system
pose a severe problem for Chinese workers. Despite this, however, the power they
possess at the point of production creates the objective potential for a powerful
working-class movement.
Pun and Smith (this issue) criticise the use of legal status as a means of defining a class
group, instead explicitly understanding precarisation as process. Nonetheless, in order to
get to grips with such processes, it is imperative to take contractual differentiation or
migrant divisions of labour seriously. In the case of the delivery drivers studied by Moore
and Newsome, for instance, the employment status of freelancers gives them mobility
employers. Consequently, dependent self-employment appears in itself intrinsically
ambivalent, increasing workers potential mobility effort bargaining, while also enabling
management to reduce the mobility power of existing workers, at least indirectly, by
creating the impression of substitutability
This ambivalence highlights an intriguing contrast between Moore and Newsome s and
Choi s contributions. The former indicates that the introduction of self-employment and
therefore autonomy and the removal of employment rights is pervading the parcel
delivery sector, worsening work conditions independently from contract. By contrast,
Choi argues that it is exactly the reduced autonomy for Chinese taxi drivers through state
restrictions on vehicle ownership that undermines pay and working conditions.
Evidently, self-employment is not inherently empowering or disempowering, but its
effects depend instead on how contractual differentiation is wielded by state and capital.
The freedom promised by self-employment, a contractual arrangement which is
expanding in some contexts (for example, accounting for 45 per cent of the growth in
total employment in the UK between 2008-2016, as reported by Moore and Newsome),
may be illusory since the re-arrangement of capital through new online technologies can
reproduce new forms of dependency, surveillance and subjugation. Many of the articles
in this issue rather suggest the intertwined and mutually conditioning nature of
contractually fragmented figures of labour, where the boundaries and benefits of
employment and self-employment are not always clear cut.
We are therefore wary of those readings that still maintain a degree of (maybe more
nostalgic) belief to the notion of standard employment as a bulwark against precarity.
Rubery provides helpful critical comparisons across diverse EU countries to show how
(mainly through the reduction of eligibility for welfare benefits, workfare activation
strategies and the continued absence of meaningful worker representation). And yet, we
believe, the diversity of precarisation processes today (expressed both in the material
arrangements that fragment the workforce and the ways in which it is experienced
subjectively), goes beyond the non- standard The proposal of extending the SER thus
risks of not acknowledging the deeper transformations of work from the point of view of
both the productive and reproductive dimensions of precarisation. Also, this exhortation
does not sufficiently account for the somewhat exclusive nature of the SER which has
historically left marginal workers (women and non-citizens) at its material and
constitutive edge. It thus risks pre-empting the development of more imaginative forms
of social protection for todays world of work. As Rubery acknowledges, the risk of
reforming the SER and extending its coverage is the creation of new lines of divisions and
'regulation at the margins' (see also Vosko, 2010) while excluding all those in unpaid
work (see also Supiot, 2001). By highlighting the role of the state in setting up
sanction-based welfare to work, pushing workers to accept poor quality work, the productive role
of state welfare regulation in sustaining and creating precarity is confirmed.
As highlighted in Jaehrling et al s piece, this dimension of productive precarisation
appears even more vividly when it is the state itself that actively pursues processes of
restructuring, in this case via the outsourcing of service provision. This contribution,
however, also critically shows how, within complex supply chains and public- to-private
commissioning there is still the space for statutory regulatory intervention, e.g. through
the introduction of labour clauses to mitigate against work degradation. This illustrates
role of regulator, maintaining or defending minimum standards on the one hand, or as
the key source of precarity enhancing differentiation on the other.
Resistance, struggle and the future of precarity
How to fight against these emergent processes of precarisation? Strategies for contesting
precarious work have become a key focus for both scholars of work and employment and
labour organisations alike, including in this issue - notably in Manky s article which looks
at Chilean mineworkers. There is an urgent question to be asked in relation to which
actors are best-placed to combat precarity and precarisation Manky s contribution
shows the surprising levels of industrial power precarious workers can wield given
appropriate support. In his case study, it is clear that politics and organisational expertise
matter: the proactive role of Communist Party organisers made all the difference to
organising among precarious subcontracted Chilean mineworkers. It shows the serious
problems with overlooking the power that even the most vulnerable workers still possess
at the point of production.
Other articles speak to the tension between the possibility of incremental policy
improvement or more radical reform. There is some consensus throughout the
contributions about the need to de-couple welfare protection from employment
(hours/earnings/contractual status), and to re-calibrate the power relationship between
employers and workers. Various authors in this issue seek to overturn the centrality of
employment to notions of economic security. Largely in relation to growing popular
debates about automation and robotisation, questions about post-capitalism or post
-work societies have gained increasing attention amongst journalists, social
been slower to consider moving beyond precarity in this way Van Dyk s paper (this
issue) is thus an important and timely intervention; allowing us to examine forms of work
that might be produced in such post-waged contexts. It is painfully apparent that while
the politics of post-wage societies have the potential to move beyond labour as the source
of protection, there are dangers in the fact that the state, as a representative of capital,
tends to incorporate elements of social life into its valorisation systems. Emphases on
non-commodified or non-wage labour, might, as van Dyk demonstrates, provide a way
out of neo-liberalism, but towards a new manifestation of capitalism community
capitalism based on the promotion and exploitation of post-waged work Here the
state plays again an active role in harnessing the social Dowling and Harvey, 2014),
producing value through the unwaged work carried out by communities of care and the
so-called sharing economy . Thus not only waged work, but also post-waged work , can
be precarious, depending on whether this politics of community and commoning may
be captured by state and capital imperatives, or driven by more emancipatory forces.
Attached to these post-wage or post-work debates has been the promotion of Universal
Basic Income (UBI) as a panacea to growing precarisation and a key tool in a transition
to a post-work society (Srnicek and Williams, 2016). While both Smith and Pun and
Rubery make brief (and largely negative) reference to Universal Basic Income, debates
relating to other forms of social protection and to a wider politics of distribution
(Ferguson, 2015) are notable by their absence in this Special Issue. Sketching out
alternatives remains one of the most challenging and difficult endeavours, but also the
most pressing. If we are all precarious now, from taxi drivers in China to managers across
Europe, there is an imperative to develop imaginative research into forms of social
point of production. A genuinely radical version of Universal Basic Income has to be
understood as a means of enhancing labour s bargaining power vis-à-vis capital as well
as the power of socially reproductive work, rather than as something that enables us
simply to move beyond work without a theorisation of the struggle involved in such a
movement.
There is an urgent need for a research agenda committed to more robust and empirical
engagement which reflects the complexity of social protection in the current moment of
contemporary capitalism. Greater theoretical insights into the ways in which social
protections can reconcile productivist and reproductivist or anti-work perspectives are
urgently needed. A key research agenda amongst work and employment scholars must
be to generate more empirically grounded and politically imaginative ways of rethinking
the security of people, which is delinked from their capacity to produce surplus value.
These must also be better able to support existing concrete struggles fighting precarity
inside and outside the workplace, and to regain ground for establishing/ thus facilitating
radical alternative futures.
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